Why empowering your competition is a good idea

We take a look at some specifics and challenges of building the ultimate games database and the API to rule them all! It’s all about gaming: No Games Left Behind!

Further down on our API page is a statement that many of our users have asked about, clearly puzzled:

You are allowed to use the data commercially in any plan, even the free version. Even if you want to build a competing product.

And just in case people thought it was a typo, we say it again in the FAQ section:

FAQ as found on the Pricing page of our API

When we decided to build the IGDB API , we thought it was obvious to make it available to both commercial and competitive projects, yet apparently most other APIs (game related or not) do not allow this. Even some users questioned it, thinking it didn’t make sense. We disagreed on this from day 1 and here’s why.

Keeping yourself sharp!

Good competition is a healthy thing, it keeps you inspired and motivated! First of all, it validates the need for your product in the current market which… is pretty important when you’re a start-up :D

Secondly, more brains are better than one. Especially with varying conditions and different needs. Products in a competitive space look at each others constantly: engineering, media or even art etc, wouldn’t be the way we know them now without inspirations from competitors!

There is much to learn from others and there’s a ton of things we haven’t thought of doing ourselves, or just don’t have the time to invest in doing, yet there is no reason why those projects shouldn’t exist so that the community could benefit from them!

Opensource power!

In order to develop a better product we of course pay close attention to our users, they’re the ones telling us what needs improving/upgrading and that is especially relevant if they are your competitor’s users.

Users giving you suggestions based on others features or products is the most invaluable feedback you can get. Always listen to the users feedback from affiliated commercial products. Keeping users happy will result in being better inform yourself with the product you’re building.

It benefits YOU!

It’s true! We believe it benefits the industry, the community, and you the public/gamers all at once! If you build a product that could enable multiple other uses and interactions there’s no reason to be selfish on the basis you won’t do it yourself: open the floodgate and the outcome may surprise you!

Sure we’re a gaming database with a social features, sure our users can create and sort lists, sure our users can rate and reviews.. but we’re sure not going to stop others from doing the same or better, because we deeply believe that is how we will improve and how you will benefit from it.

Ultimately we are gamers passionate about an industry that we love, and our end goal is a better gaming together.

Here’s a shout-out to some of the cool projects that are making use of our API commercially, go check them out!

Playnite: Playnite is open source video game library manager with one simple goal: To provide a unified interface for all of your games. Many of us in the office now use it as our standard launcher!

GGapp: A very sleek and easy to use backlogging app. It’s a one man team which makes it even more impressive! Very neat design ;)

My Games Collection: A game tracking app with the added twist that it also features hardware, Amiibo & Skylanders!

GameVix: A sharing service for swapping second hand games, and getting them straight to your door!

If you happen to be one of our API users, get in touch with us! We love seeing all the cool projects that are happening. If you jump in on our discord we even have a dedicated channel for promoting your projects ;)

If you want to keep track of how IGDB is evolving and share your thoughts and suggestions, Discord is a good place to grab us for a chat! If not feel free to shoot us an email!

With the biggest gaming database online, we strive to become the ultimate source for the true gamer. Here you'll find news, updates, announcements, interviews and more, all related the video game industry.

IGDB.com | Design, product & marketing. Overall gaming dude!

With the biggest gaming database online, we strive to become the ultimate source for the true gamer. Here you'll find news, updates, announcements, interviews and more, all related the video game industry.